Conte, the 43-year-old coach of Italian champion Juventus, has been caught up
in a massive match-fixing scandal — perhaps the worst in a nation that has seen
more than its share. But he’s not accused of taking a bribe or throwing a game.
Rather, prosecutors say, he kept quiet about matches that he was aware had been
manipulated.

It’s a case that illustrates the disconnect in Italian soccer between what is
honorable and what has long been considered acceptable.

Conte is facing a 15-month ban for allegedly failing to alert authorities
about two tainted matches during the 2010-11 season, when he was coaching Siena
in second-tier Serie B.

A successful coach who was surprised at the uproar after turning his back on
wrongdoing — sound familiar?

“My story speaks clearly for itself,” Conte said last May after he came under
investigation, weeks after leading Juventus to an unbeaten league season and the
Serie A championship.

“I’ve always showed moral integrity, honesty, fairness in every situation,
whether as a player or a coach.” After a two-hour hearing in July, the coach
said he was “able to clarify the situation point by point, telling a credible
truth.”

Conte’s bravado proved ill-founded. In the end, he offered to accept a
three-month ban and a fine of $240,000-plus rather than face a hearing before an
Italian soccer federation tribunal and a possible jail sentence. But when the
tribunal rejected the plea deal last week, Conte was left to face a sporting
trial in which the lead prosecutor is seeking a 15-month ban.

The court plans to rule on the case by Friday — a day before Juventus plays
Napoli in the Italian Super Cup in Beijing, with the Serie A season set to begin
a week later. Conte watched from a private box Saturday when Juventus defeated
Malaga, 2-0, in a friendly.

It’s easy to imagine why Conte might have kept quiet. Since debuting as a
16-year-old midfielder for Lecce, he had been part of a culture in which winning
was not always the objective, and scandals have surfaced with depressing
regularity. Just six years ago, Juventus — the team for which Conte played for
13 seasons — was stripped of two league titles and exiled to Serie B in another
match-fixing affair, known as Calciopoli.

As Jeré Longman of The New York Times wrote in June, “Soccer in Italy is not
unlike driving. Laws are treated merely as suggestions.”

In the same article, former U.S. national team defender Alexi Lalas, now an
ESPN commentator, recalled his stint with Italian club Padova. At times, he
said, games seemed to unfold as if they had been scripted. For instance, if the
season was winding down and both teams could benefit from a draw, “you could
feel the foot being taken off the pedal at moments in the game,” Lalas told
The Times.

Sometimes a club safely in the middle of the standings might hold back
against a club in danger of being relegated. Why? Because the club that’s
winning now may be the one struggling and needing small favors later.

But the current scandal, known as Calcioscommesse (soccer bet), goes way
beyond “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” Declan Hill, whose book The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime details how Asian fixers
have infiltrated the sport, calls it “the mother of all match-fixing scandals in
Italy.”

Speaking on BBC radio’s World Football program, Hill said that Italian prosecutors
believe that Asian match-fixers had been working in Italy for at least 10
years.

“This isn’t the favors, the arrangements, that we’ve seen so often in Italian
football,” Hill said. “This is, they were being paid off by Asian criminals that
over the course of a season were making millions off these fixes.

“Somebody had to stand up … and Conte chose not to do it.”

Silence, so often seen as a prudent course of action in Italy, could be
Conte’s undoing. And his likely suspension could signal a change in the
country’s soccer culture.

The Associated Press contributed to this
report.

‘Natural death’ for Urso

An autopsy performed on Columbus Crew midfielder Kirk Urso on Monday did not
reveal any trauma, and the coroner said signs point to “an apparent natural
death” pending results from toxicology tests.

Urso, 22, was pronounced dead at 1:50 a.m. Sunday at Grant Medical Center
after collapsing at a downtown Columbus bar and restaurant.

Franklin County coroner Jan Gorniak said toxicology tests will not be
finalized for four to six weeks. She said the autopsy revealed no trauma to
Urso’s body, along with no blood clots. In addition to toxicology tests, the
coroner’s office will also take a closer look at what Gorniak referred to as
“heart changes.”

Urso played in six games with the Crew and was rehabbing from a sports-groin
injury sustained in May. He did not travel to the game at D.C. United on
Saturday night.

AFC calls for Freeh

Former FBI director Louis Freeh, who directed the Penn State investigation,
has been brought in by the Asian Football Confederation to assist in the
corruption probe of its suspended president, Mohamed bin Hammam.

AFC acting president Zhang Jilong called on the 46 federations to cooperate
with the investigation into allegations that bin Hammam enriched himself and his
family and rewarded supporters with tens of thousands of dollars in cash, among
other charges. The allegations were uncovered in an internal audit that resulted
in the AFC giving bin Hammam a 30-day provisional ban last month.

The suspension came three days before the Court of Arbitration threw out a
lifetime ban imposed by FIFA against bin Hammam in an unrelated case.

More match-fixing suspicions

UEFA is investigating evidence that a Europa League match may have been fixed
last month.

The European soccer governing body said its betting fraud monitoring system
“has detected suspicious betting patterns” in Albanian club Tirana’s 5-0 loss
against Aalesund of Norway.

Norway’s soccer association has said it was alerted by the national lottery,
which stopped taking bets when the score reached 2-0 in the second-leg match of
the second qualifying round July 26. Lottery officials reported unusual betting
patterns from undisclosed Asian countries, including wagers that the game would
end 5-0.

Aalesund, which scored four times in the second half, advanced 6-1 on
aggregate.

Briefly …

Clark back to Dynamo: MF Ricardo Clark is returning to the
Houston Dynamo, having agreed to a deal with his former club following his
release from Germany’s Eintracht Frankfurt on July 17. Clark played for the
Dynamo from 2006 to 2009, then signed with the Bundesliga club in January 2010.
He played just 15 league games and three German Cup matches for Frankfurt and
was loaned to Norway’s Stabaek in February.

Arsenal stocks up: Arsenal made its third off-season player
signing Tuesday, with attacking midfielder Santi Cazorla joining from Malaga of
Spain on a long-term contract for an undisclosed fee. The north London club had
already signed Olivier Giroud from Montpellier for a reported $20.4 million and
Lukas Podolski from FC Cologne for an undisclosed fee.

Surgery for Gomez: German national team striker Mario Gomez
underwent surgery on his left ankle Tuesday and will be out of action for three
weeks, said his club, Bayern Munich. Gomez, who scored 26 Bundesliga goals last
season, is the latest of several Bayern players to face an injury break before
the league season kicks off Aug. 24. They include defenders David Alaba, Rafinha
and Diego Contento.

In remission: Aston Villa said last week that captain
Stiliyan Petrov is in remission following treatment for acute leukemia. Petrov,
32, was diagnosed with leukemia four months ago.

Staff and wire reports

The week past

Mexican Liga MX: at Toluca 2, Leon 1 — Toluca has the only
perfect record through three rounds of Mexico’s Apertura summer-fall season.
Brazilians scored both goals for the winners Sunday, with Lucas Silva delivering
on a 15th-minute header and Zinha doubling Toluca’s lead in the
38th.

The week ahead

Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup final: Seattle at Sporting Kansas City
(Wednesday) — Seattle can become the first team in the nation’s oldest
soccer tournament to win four consecutive championships. The Sounders are coming
off a 4-0 home victory over Los Angeles in which former FC Dallas striker Eddie
Johnson scored his team-leading 10th goal of the season. The crowd of 60,908 in
Seattle on Sunday was the largest of the year in MLS. Sporting lost to Houston,
2-0, on Friday night and surrendered the MLS Eastern Conference lead to the
Dynamo.

French Ligue 1: Toulouse at Montpellier (Friday) — Montpellier
begins its title defense in a familiar position: underdog to big-spending Paris
Saint-Germain. The arrival of striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic makes PSG an even
stronger favorite to overtake Montpellier, which saw 21-goal scorer Olivier
Giroud move to Arsenal and could be about to lose captain Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa to
AC Milan. PSG opens Saturday at home against Lorient.